


Break The Lock if it Don't Fit

by hostagesfic



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-05
Updated: 2012-11-05
Packaged: 2017-11-18 00:31:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/554909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hostagesfic/pseuds/hostagesfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“It’s not what I want you to say, ‘s what I <i>need</i> you to do.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Break The Lock if it Don't Fit

**Author's Note:**

> For the anon prompt: "Larry angst (Harry's POV) - I mean, come on, just observe that little glance near the end! Louis and Harry are together, but Louis doesn't want to get rid of Eleanor and it kills Harry." Title from the quintessential fight fic soundtrack, Kiss With A Fist by Florence + The Machine.

He smells like her. "You," Harry starts, and gives up, drops his teabag in the sink defeatedly and doesn't return the kiss Louis' dropped on the back of his neck. Behind him, Louis is leaning on the opposite counter, tapping out something on his phone before he sighs, kicks his feet on the tiles. "Just going to ignore me then, Haz?"

Harry rolls his shoulders, wipes his hands on the towel hanging by the sink, and doesn’t turn around quite yet. “Dunno what you want me to say,” he mumbles, busies himself straightening out the cereal boxes lined up on the counter, taking plates out of the drying rack to put them back in their places.

“Hullo, Lou, how’re you, fancy a cuppa, how was your evening, missed you,” Louis’ voice is light as he lists off the possibilities, but he’s staring hard at the dip of Harry’s shoulders, jaw tightening. “Any of ‘em’d work but I understand if you were sent into a stupor by my very presence.”

Chuckling bitterly, Harry sets down a stack of bowls and turns, hands braced on the counter behind him. “Hey, Louis. ‘sat a new aftershave? It’s quite sweet.”

For a quick second, Louis’ forehead crinkles, and then his eyebrows raise, his eyes go hard. He turns, stepping past Harry to the cabinet, reaching for a tea cup. “Someone’s being a little bitch, sorry I bothered to, I dunno, try t’have a conversation with my boyfriend?”

“Do you even _know_ what that means, Louis?” Harry says, wraps a firm hand around Louis’ forearm, poised to kill with a single glance. “‘Cos last time I checked, that means _I’m_ the one you take on dates.”

“I _do not_ take Eleanor on _dates_ ,” Louis hisses, not moving from under Harry’s grip. Instead, he’s gone deathly still, staring right back at Harry.

Harry wants so badly to just tighten his grip on Louis’ arm, to feel crunching bones and snapping sinew through Louis’ skin, and it’s scary, absolutely horrifying that he could suddenly _hate_ so much- but it’s not sudden. Not really; a bitterness that’s been festering at the pit of his stomach for what’s entirely too long to bear anymore. “Pardon,” he drawls, “What’s the term again? Public sightings. Very important to be seen, of course.”

“Fuck you,” Louis whispers, quiet and terrible, and he does pull away, now, stumbling back against the counter. 

“Thanks, I’ll pass tonight,” Harry spits, lowering his hand a few seconds too late. His skin is thrumming with something a lot like the energy right before going onstage, but it’s fueled by an entirely different fear this time. Instead of wanting to curl up and disappear, he wonders what it’d feel like to punch their tile backsplash.

All the adrenaline goes out of Louis in a sick little rush, and he shrinks, visibly deflating and curling in on himself, hands curling into fists as he slides along the counter, towards the living room. “Fine,” he says, small and like an afterthought, half over his shoulder, though he’s not meeting Harry’s eyes now. “Congrats, mate, you win.” And really, it should be enough of a sign for Harry that Louis is the one backing down first, tonight, probably would be, but for the way that everything’s gone fuzzy and red and achey in Harry’s head.

Harry follows him in long strides, though, raises his voice uncharacteristically. “It’s not fucking fine, Lou, it really isn’t,” he warns, loud and echoing through the flat. Louis is weaving his way to the bedroom, and although it’d only take a few steps to get in front of him, Harry simply follows with his hands balled into tight fists, fingernails digging into his palm

Louis turns when he’s almost to the bed, _their_ bed, the bed that has Harry’s pajamas crumpled at the foot and Louis’ tucked half under his pillow, that has pillowcases they bought _together_ \- and he spins, shoving at Harry as he moves in closer. “Don’t fucking _corner_ me in my own flat,” he says, tightly, wrapping his arms around himself now and taking a step back. “What do you want me to say, Harry?”

“See, I think _that’s_ what you don’t get,” Harry says, and it’s only then that he notices his chest is heaving, breaths coming quick and heart threatening to break his ribs. “It’s not what I want you to say, ‘s what I _need_ you to do.”

“Oh,” Louis breathes, and then his voice is choked with laughter, “No, I think I- I _know_ that you’d love for me to just throw our entire _future_ away right before our fucking album comes out, Harry, I know you’d love for me to just grab you by the neck on stage and kiss you in front of the entire world and the internet and my parents and fucking- Simon _Cowell_ , so don’t think I don’t get it, I think you’ve made that perfectly clear.”

There’s something about Louis’ tone that makes him sound like he’s offering to snap Harry’s neck, is the thing, and Harry’s never been more frustrated that the one thing they had to disagree on, when everything else fell right into place, was the one thing he wanted most in the whole world. He feels pathetic, arms limp at his sides and eyes on the floor, still burning with anger. He knows it’s low, and he’s already rounding his side of the bed and collecting his pillow, pajamas fisted in one hand. “No, Lou. I just want you to hold _my_ hand.”

Louis watches him leave and doesn’t try to stop him, doesn’t ask where he’s going. He’s not even really looking at Harry, eyes just following his feet as they carry him out the door, tracing the floorboards like he can see the steps he’s taken, measuring the distance they’ve made between them. 

He doesn’t move for a long time, either, just stands until his legs feel numb and he slowly makes his way to their bathroom. (Doesn’t look at Harry’s toothbrush in the stand next to his own, doesn’t consider taking it out to him, doesn’t, doesn’t. He doesn’t even fucking know if Harry’s still _here_ , could be at Nick’s, could be. Louis just doesn’t.)

;

The guest bedroom feels like a hotel room- like there could be one exactly like it anywhere in the world, with the same pretty duvet they bought at Ikea months ago, the same crisp, clean sheets and the same minimalist bedside table with the small, round lamp. Harry wants to trash it, really, considers it seriously before piling the pillows on one side ( _Louis’ side,_ he doesn’t think) and dropping his own on the other, pushing all the covers aside. His clothes end up strewn across the floor, and he pauses halfway through pulling his flannel bottoms up and simply drops them. He makes a cocoon for himself in as little space as he can take up, bare feet pulled up and tucked into each other, and squeezes his eyes tightly enough that he can tell himself it’s the cause for his tears.

;

It’s a little bit after four when Louis wakes up in a sweat and pats the empty side of the bed frantically. He’s disoriented, lids too heavy to stay up for too long but still struggling, eyes adjusting until the silhouettes in the room look less like ominous creatures and more like furniture. And then he remembers. The noise is unintentional, a sort of breathless whimper, and he tries curling around himself before he realizes that it won’t _work_. 

Harry isn’t on the couch, when he looks, his feet chilled against the cold floor, his heart pattering unevenly. He’s not in the first guest bedroom, either, and Louis hears that sound again, clamps a hand over his mouth because he _can’t_ be crying about this, he’s an adult, he can sleep alone if he has to.

But he doesn’t have to, because Harry is in the guest bedroom at the end of the hall, an awkward shape under a mound of blankets, and Louis shoves the pile of pillows out of the way to make his way under the sheets beside him, frantic in haste and relief. He’s shaking when he presses himself to Harry’s back, and he’s not sure whether he’s more afraid that Harry is awake and ignoring him, or that he’s able to sleep so well without Louis that he doesn’t notice the difference. All the same, he tries to be careful when he slides his arm over Harry’s side, nudges his knees up behind Harry’s, leans his forehead to the span of warm skin between Harry’s naked shoulders.

Harry has been dozing, drifting in and out of sleep when the loud noises and images in his head allow it. His restlessness weighs him down, anger turned to plain loneliness soaked into his bones, and the only sign he can give Louis that he’s awake is a feeble “Hi, Lou.” Instantly, the tight coils settled down his back loosen, tense muscles relaxing like a chemical reaction between their skin.

Louis melts against him, exhaling hot and a little damp against his spine and making Harry shiver, tightening his arm so that his hand flattens on Harry’s stomach. “Nnmm,” he mumbles, knowing what he’s going to have to say but trying to decide how, and when. 

Carefully, Harry unfolds his limbs to fit better into Louis, eyes closed. He inhales deeply, head tipped back a little, and the smell of her is gone, replaced with the musky, crisp, sharp yet comfortable scent he associates with safety, and home, and _him_. “I’m sorry,” he says, lowering his chin again.

Louis takes a shuddering inhale and presses a kiss to a sharp bump of Harry’s spine. “’m sorry,” he whispers back, voice gone scratchy with sleep and more that neither of them will point out.  

“Okay,” Harry replies, and a lot of things aren’t at all, but for now _they_ are- enough that Harry can slip his fingers in between Louis’ and settle his back against his chest fully, ignore the tear tracks staining his cheeks and the way his nose feels stuffy and drink in Louis’ warmth until he’s not cold anymore for the first time tonight.

“Okay,” Louis repeats, and tilts his head, pressing his face to the blade of Harry’s shoulder, letting Harry feel his own damp lashes. “Okay.”


End file.
